“The Fountain” originally appeared with Twisted Sister Lit Mag in February of 2017. This post consists of a slightly updated and reworked version of the original.

The storm had sunk the Consuelo and the Santa Sara, leaving Francisco Herrera and Rodrigo Ibanez as the only sailors able to reach a nearby island. Anacaona, a female savage enslaved on an earlier voyage and trained to translate for the Spanish, washed up on the beach a short while later. The three survivors, greatly fatigued from their struggle in the sea, rested for a day on the sand.